


Mistakes

by kg1507



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-26
Updated: 2013-01-09
Packaged: 2017-11-22 12:59:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/610087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kg1507/pseuds/kg1507
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chapter 1 summary: Her mind is a sanctuary - the one place she can completely disappear into, where no one can enter unwanted and no one can bring her out. It is the place she feels the safest and the most secure of who she is. And she is locked out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

M’gann is lost.

All her life, she has used her mind to communicate with her kind on Mars. It was more than the main means of everyday conversation; it was the purest form of relaying thoughts, feelings, and emotions that mere words could never hope to describe. On Earth, her mind was seen as an invaluable tool to the team she now calls family, and it is her mind that has meant the difference between life and death on several occasions. It is her priceless gift that has given her a sense of purpose, and has made her feel needed.

She has peered into enough minds to know more about humanity than any human will ever know. She knows their love and their strength, their passion and their capacity for good, but she also knows that the human mind can be the darkest place imaginable - full of hatred and fear and twisted to the point of madness. She has seen terrible things in her years on Earth, but the good she has encountered is what helps her hold on to the hope that the light can overcome the dark.

But her mind is not just a relay device. It’s not just a tool or a secret weapon or even something as simple a description as a “power.” Her mind is a sanctuary – the one place she can completely disappear into, where no one can enter unwanted and no one can bring her out. It is the place she feels the safest and the most secure of who she is.

And she is locked out.

Two days have passed since the rescue mission, and M’gann has spent them in a thick, impenetrable haze. Her mind is cloudy, unfamiliar, unsettling. She wanders like a lost child, alternating between frantically stumbling into the nothing, and aimlessly slipping further and further in a daze almost as thick as the mist itself. She knows her mind like a well-lived room, every intricate detail ingrained, a map to the very core of what makes M’gann, “M’gann.” But now, this place –  _her_  place, is unrecognizable. Foreign – as if it isn’t even hers at all. It is more than frightening. For a Martian, to lose one’s mind is the equivalent of death.

M’gann knows she is not there yet. She has heard enough stories to know when she will reach the pinnacle of a Martian breakdown. The panic has been severe, blinding and intense, but she has been able to pull herself out of it, however brief the respite. The fog is a sign that she is not yet in purgatory, the closest Earthly word that translates the original Martian term. It is the Martian equivalent of Hell – when all sense and knowledge of who you are is completely lost. You cease to remember everything about your life - your friends, your family, even your own name. The slate isn’t just wiped clean – the slate itself is shattered, the pieces ground to dust and blown away in the wind. You don’t exist. You never existed at all. You are eclipsed by total darkness, and then even darkness loses its meaning.

The fog is a sign with a double meaning. She has not sunken into insanity – but she is close.

After the destruction ofMt.Justice, the Team relocated to the Justice League’s base on Earth, the Hall of Justice. For most of them, the Hall just became the new, temporary meeting place to strategize, train, and receive orders. But to M’gann, Garfield, and Conner, the Hall became their new home with absolutely none of the sentiment.Mt.Justicehad been their real home - M’gann’s earthly,Garfield’s adoptive, and the only home Conner had ever known. To them, the Hall was a poor replacement for what they had lost, and the temporarity that hung in the air was a frequent reminder not to let themselves get attached, lest they be brutally uprooted once again.

It was for this reason that M’gann spent the majority of her time high up in the clouds over the Hall, safely ensconced in her camouflaged bio-ship. The Hall felt too crowded, which was ridiculous since it was just the three of them and the occasional League member, but the place was so vast that she couldn’t imagine crossing their paths throughout the course of the day. Even so, she needed to be someplace familiar if she was to find herself again, and she needed to be alone. The silence was both a blessing and a curse. M’gann was constantly toeing the line between craving the quiet and feeling just within reach of herself after hours of self mind-probing, and feelings of panic that took over when the pieces slipped away once more and the silence became suffocating. It was a cycle she had been caught in from the moment she had read Aqualad’s mind and found the truth, and she felt more and more of her sanity slipping away after each failed attempt to piece herself back together.

M’gann was curled into a tight ball on the floor; her eyes tightly shut and sweat glistening on her brow. Her face was a pale, sickly green, and her teeth were clenched together in pain. Soft whimpers of sound escaped every so often, and her cheeks were damp with tears. She had been battling her own mind for over two hours straight, and she was exhausted and frustrated and more afraid than ever. The fog that usually greeted her as soon as she began to venture had now been preceded by a new symptom - utter chaos. Blinding lights with impossibly bright colors, flickering at speeds that increased with each passing second, jagged lightning-bolt shaped lines that seemed to slice through her brain like knives, tremors she could feel beneath her feet and turning her limbs to jelly, all while the world around her spun like a carousel; up and down and around and around and sideways and backwards and round, round, round –

And the sounds… the sounds only added to her horror. Shrill screams that pierced her eardrums, the roar of a wall of fire that grew taller and became a pillar with her in the center, the ticking of a giant clock, the seconds that grew louder and louder until she could feel her bones vibrate with each tick.

And then came the worst part – a black figure emerging from the center of the wreckage, crawling on hands and knees and flickering in different shapes and sizes, as if it couldn’t decide who it wanted to be. Its eyes glowed red and when it came upon her, it was both her Martian and Earth faces that stared back, grotesquely merged together on a body that was more dead than alive, manically laughing as it ripped her piece by piece.

M’gann had been stuck in this plane until only a few minutes ago, and now the fog was starting to thicken. The sheer terror that had taken over her physical body had drained almost all of her mental energy, and she could barely keep the link up in her weakened state. Her own mind was turning against her, and it was winning. The only thing that had kept her hanging on this long was her desperation to only experience this madness once, because she didn’t think she could face the black figure again and come out of it in once piece.

She was deep in the fog now, and she tried to use this to calm rather than terrify her. The quiet was what she needed, but she knew it wouldn’t be long until her panic made it impossible to go on again. How many times could she experience this before her mind shut down?

 _Not… y-yet…_  She told herself. Pushing further, she ran head-on into the fog, the way she’d done countless times before. Every attempt caused the fog to thicken, and this time was no exception. She stopped before it became too overwhelming and tried to think, but each second that passed sapped more and more of her strength. She was reaching delirium, and her exhaustion was causing her to begin to babble.

_No… I can’t-I can’t stop it. Why-why did y-you h-have to… I didn’t m-mean to… don’t leave m- I’m so sorry, It was a m-mistake, C-Conner don’t… Kaldur, please… d-don’t do this. D-don’t go… you killed her… no… Artemis… he k-killed… I d-don’t u-underst-and, why? Dick, why? W-why did you lie to us?_

Her whimpering escalated to screams.  _I TRUSTED YOU. H-HOW COULD YOU? I DIDN’T KNOW! IT’S NOT MY FAULT! IT’S NOT MY FAULT! I’M SORRY! MAKE IT STOP! CONNER, MAKE IT STOP!_

Just as M’gann was sure this was the end of her misery and the end of her sanity, the fog began to fade away. She saw figures standing in a row before her, silent and still. For a moment, she was terrified it was the figures in black, the ones with her face, but another look erased that fear immediately.

Conner, Artemis, Kaldur, Garfield, Nightwing, Wally, Zatanna, Rocket, La’gaan, her uncle, Marie Logan, all of the people she cared about stood before her as immobile as statues. Behind them, hundreds upon hundreds of memories seen through her eyes stretched across her inner mind. As they played before her, she began to relive them – and re-experience all the emotions that accompanied them. But the constant stream became too much too quickly – happiness and sorrow and anger and love and hate and jealousy and envy and fear, it was all blending together until M’gann couldn’t tell one emotion from the next. All she was aware of was that it  _hurt_. But she tried to hold on. She tried to keep the link alive, because she didn’t know if she could summon the energy to come this far again. But it hurt so  _bad_.

She felt arms around her; strong, warm, familiar – lifting her up, keeping her from crumbling. And she was filled with the sense that maybe she  _could_  do this – she could fix all of her wrongs, all of her mistakes, everything that had been broken - including herself.

And then the monsters emerged, and the warmth was replaced by an icy chill that took her very breath away, and the red eyes glowed like embers from the faces before her.

M’gann finally severed the link, her chest heaving with dry sobs and air sharply entering her lungs with each breath. She realized she was on her hands and knees, her muscles aching with the exertion used just to keep herself from collapsing. She slowly eased her body to the floor, the cool metal soothing against her feverish skin. She lay on her stomach and tried to bring her frantic heart-beat down, but her entire body felt rigid and stiff and she felt too exhausted to put any effort into anything else after the ordeal she had just been through. So she simply let the aftermath run its course; she waited for the stifling heat to leave her and let the chills caused by her cooling sweat to make her twitch and shiver, she waited for her muscles to relax on their own, letting the relief wash over her from head to toe – and she waited for the hellish images that lived in her own head to fade away, if only for a little while.

M’gann let out an angry yell and pounded her fist against the floor. She’d made progress, but it had cost her at least a day’s worth of recovery before she could make another attempt without damaging her psyche. She had already pushed herself too far in the last few days, unable to allow her mind to completely recharge as the urgency of her situation pressed on her chest like a mountain. She’d come one step closer to repairing the link, but it hadn’t been enough - and she was beginning to lose her will to keep trying.

She felt hot tears burning the corners of her sore eyes, the well-worn trail guiding the moisture into straight, uniform lines. Deep down, she knew that the only way she could fix her own broken mind was if she could undo the damage she had done to Kaldur. But there were several obstacles in the way preventing her from doing so – the most formidable being the question of if it was even possible for her to reverse the catatonic state she had left him in. And she knew she couldn’t try unless her own psyche was completely restored. To try to fix him in her current condition would almost guarantee further damage to his mind, with a very likely chance that she could kill him.

A knock against the outside of the bioship made her start, bolting upright too quickly and instantly making her light-headed. She placed her hand on her forehead and closed her eyes as dots swam across her vision.

“M’gann? M’gann, let me in. I… I want to talk to you.” It was Conner. “Please, I know you want to be alone, but… you’ve been up here for almost three days.”

M’gann’s eyes snapped open. Three? She must’ve lost more time than she’d thought. It explained why her body ached so much more painfully than the last time.

“You… you haven’t eaten. Gar is worried about you. I… I’m worried too.” He sounded so desperate, so afraid. She was so tired and felt so alone, so terrified of what was to come that she didn’t let herself think about how different things were between them now, how all of his pain was her fault too. Right now, she wanted him here with her – she wanted something that felt familiar, something she knew that couldn’t be erased from memory; the strongest thing she could imagine.

M’gann created a small opening in the ship, revealing a disheveled Conner standing atop Sphere in her vehicle-like transformation. He looked like he hadn’t slept, his eyes red with stress and exhaustion. He immediately stepped into the ship and was at her side the moment she entered his vision. His face was creased with worry as he kneeled to the ground.

“M’gann-”

“Conner, please,” M’gann cut him off, placing her hands on his broad shoulders. Her voice shook, revealing to him just how much she was struggling.“Please, don’t say anything. Not yet. I just – I just need you. Just for a minute. Please, please don’t leave –”

Conner sat down and let her crawl into him, her small body fitting into his chest the way she’d done thousands of times before in the last five years. He put his arms around her and rubbed small circles into her back as he felt her begin to tremble. “I’m not. I’m not going anywhere. I’m here, M’gann. I’m right here, ok?”

He held her for what felt like hours; hours he had yearned for night after night as he’d tried to mend his own broken heart. But it was impossible to repair what had been broken when the only one who could fix it was the person responsible for all the pain. And she had broken more than just his heart – she’d broken  _him_. Yet day after day, night after night, she was the only one he thought about. He’d been the one to end it, but he couldn’t make himself move on – even when she had. And he hadn’t realized why until right now – he didn’t want to. He knew it was a dangerous thing to feel, to want something that gave him so much unbearable pain, but it wasn’t something he could instantly turn off like a light switch. He loved her. Despite everything she’d done, despite the wedge that had been driven between them, Conner loved her. She had caused him so much pain in the last few months, but he would take away all of hers right now without a second thought, without anything in return.

When he felt M’gann’s body rise and fall with consistent, even breaths, he gently pulled her from his chest and looked at her. Not very long ago, Conner had been the one to take her pain and turn it into something manageable – something they could fight together. But now with things so different between them and so many hurtful words exchanged, he wondered if anything he had to say would even matter.

His mind was blank as he searched for words; she was so beautiful, so familiar, and yet so broken.

“I’m scared.” Conner said, his voice low. M’gann’s eyes widened slightly and she felt her skin tingle underneath her uniform where his fingers were pressed along her shoulders and back. “Of me?” She whispered.

Conner shook his head. “I’m scared  _over_  you. I’ve been scared the moment we rescued Garfield and the others.” He could still see her stricken face as she sat in the bioship, away from the controls. She had never not piloted the ship if she was on board, but Nightwing had been at the head that day.

“I know something happened down there that you haven’t told Nightwing or anyone else, something that’s made you want to hide where no one can get to you.” Conner cupped her face in his hand, forgetting that he shouldn’t – that it was wrong, that she was with La’gaan now, that he was still so angry and hurt and that the last few months had been the worst of his short life because of her. He couldn’t not touch her, not after all this time and everything they’d been through. He wouldn’t abandon her now.

“Please, M’gann…”

Her eyes filled with tears and she tilted her head away. “Conner, I don’t want to give you any more reasons to hate me… you don’t understand.”

“Then help me to.” Conner said. “We could always talk to each other about anything. You never let me keep anything in if you knew it was causing me this much pain.” He placed his hand on top of hers and tried not to think about the last time they’d held hands, when they’d been happy. He forced himself to keep his emotions in check.

“Just because we’re not together anymore doesn’t mean I don’t still care about you.” Conner waited, seconds ticking away, but he knew her resolve was wearing thin. Her head was bowed and she was visibly shaking, but it wasn’t until he felt her fingers close around his that she finally broke.

Tears flowed freely down her face, her voice a harsh whisper. “Oh Conner, I’ve made a horrible, horrible mistake…”


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

The Hall of Justice echoed with a profound, unsettling silence. Dick Grayson nervously paced back and forth in the control room; he had just sent the last squad out on missions, and his anxiety was taking a toll on him. He was waiting for Wally to show up, hoping he would not bail on him out of anger. The last few days had tested their friendship in ways that could not survive much more tension. There was no sugar-coating it: Wally was pissed, and Dick didn’t blame him. The carefully formulated plan he’d spent weeks perfecting and re-evaluating was going all wrong, and he was beginning to flounder. He knew that Wally could see it too.

Dick sat down and put his tired head in his hands. How had everything gone so wrong? First La’gaan had disobeyed orders and got himself abducted, but he’d been in minimal danger with Aqualad secretly looking out for him. Then Garfield, Jaime, and Bart had been captured, making it even harder for Aqualad to guarantee safety for all of them and still maintain his cover. ThenMt.Justice, the destruction of not just their HQ, but the home of several team members. Gone. Just like everything else.

But no, even that wasn’t the worst.

Dick’s fingers pressed deep into his scalp, his arms trembling from the exertion. The pads of his thumbs slowly massaged his temples, his headache making him feel like he was in a cloud. The worst of his troubles had occurred three days ago, where one of his best friends had attacked Aqualad and rendered him totally unconcious, jeopardizing the entire mission and the purpose of sending Artemis undercover in the first place. He was terrified of what would happen in the coming days. Artemis was a capable and intelligent woman, and she knew how a villain’s mind worked, but this was a completely different kind of enemy – one they knew barely anything about. And without Aqualad, she was entirely on her own.

He’d spent the last three days desperately trying to come up with a solution, and he’d gotten nowhere. Between grappling with Wally and pretending everything was fine in the presence of the rest of the team, acting as though a comatose Aqualad was something to celebrate, Dick was beginning to crack under the stress. Now more than ever, he wished Bruce were here to guide him.

Dick’s head snapped up as the Zeta-tube system announced the arrival of a teammate. He stood, plastering a strained smile on his face to greet Wally, but before he could make out the name and status code, an animalistic roar covered up the system’s voice and Dick instantly readied himself for some sort of breached security. A split second later, Superboy materialized and Dick almost stumbled forward, he was so caught off guard.

“NIGHTWING!” Superboy bellowed. He was quick, barreling out of the tube like a wild animal and drew back a fist. Before Dick could brace himself, he was flying across the room where he crashed into the wall, leaving a cloud of thin dust and debris. His armor was designed to protect him from impacts like this, but his head still rang painfully and his vision swam before his eyes as he tried to get up. His stomach sank. There was only one explanation for Conner’s rage, and Nightwing knew the day he had dreaded for so long had finally arrived.

Superboy was on him before Dick could blink. He snarled at him with a rage Dick hadn’t seen since Conner’s Cadmus days, and he hopelessly raised a hand to his face.

Conner grabbed his side with one powerful hand, and Nightwing heard the armor crack beneath his fingers. He lifted him over his head and used his other hand to grab Nightwing’s leg. “HOW COULD YOU?”

He threw Dick a good ten yards where he landed with a painful thud, his muscles screaming in protest. He struggled to get up, but Conner was already beside him, lifting him up again and smashing him against the nearest wall, holding him against it with one hand. Nightwing grimaced and closed his eyes, waiting for a punch that would undoubtedly break his face.

Conner drew back his fist and hesitated, his breathing harsh and rough as if he were holding back sobs. His face was red and he looked broken and feral, teetering on the edge of insanity. Conner gritted his teeth as an unspoken decision was finally made, dropping his fist and roughly tossing Nightwing one-handedly to the floor. Dick rubbed his neck where Conner’s hand had just been, his mind racing. He was fighting panic– Conner was half Kryptonian and could snap him like a twig if he wanted to and although he was holding back now, Dick wasn’t sure how long Conner could keep his anger in check.

Conner was just about to advance on Dick again when a reddish blur came out of nowhere and tackled Conner to the ground. Nightwing didn’t think he’d ever been so happy to see Wally West.

Wally planted one knee on Conner’s back as he tried to hold his arms together. Wally was strong, but nowhere near as strong as Conner. He’d bought Nightwing only a little bit of time, but the unexpected turn of events had jump-started Dick’s mind and snapped him out of his stupor.

Conner struggled and writhed underneath Wally, who was quickly losing his grip.

“Conner, stop! What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Wally gasped, using all of his energy and strength to try to subdue his long-time friend.

Superboy was thrashing. “Get off of me! You – you’re just as bad as him!”

“Conner, let me explain!” Dick protested, struggling to open a small pouch on the side of his armor.

“Explain WHAT?” Conner screamed, his voice muffled at the awkward angle of his face against the hard ground. “How you LIED to all of us?” He finally managed to get an arm free from Wally’s grasp and threw the speedster with slightly more force than he had with Nightwing. Wally could take it, and Superboy just wanted something to hit.

Wally hit the wall and groaned, but was on his feet and shoving Conner backwards before he could register the movement and dodge. M’gann stood by helplessly, frozen with fear and unable to determine who she should be aiding in the fight.

Wally had Conner’s arms pinned to the wall, the strain evident on his face. Sweat dripped down his brow and he could feel his muscles begin to quiver from lack of use, having been away from the hero life for so long. He knew he couldn’t hold him much longer.

“Con-nner, stop it – we’re…your… fr-friends.”

Conner was about to reply when he suddenly yelled out in pain, dropping to the ground like a stone. Nightwing stood tall a few yards away gripping a small green rock in his outstretched hand, barely the size of a quarter. His other hand revealed a tiny lead box. As Nightwing began to move towards him, he imagined that this is what it must feel like to be a traitor – he had never hated himself more.

M’gann was screaming as she ran to them, her eyes wide in horror. “STOP IT! NIGHTWING, STOP!”

“Conner, I don’t want to hurt you.” Dick said, taking small, deliberate steps. His voice was calm, but there was a quiver in his throat he couldn’t seem to control. “I know you’re angry. I know you feel betrayed, but let me explain why I did this, and I promise you can do whatever you want to me when I’m done. Agreed?”

Conner felt like every muscle and bone was on fire, but it was his heart that hurt more than anything else. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t the way things were supposed to be – betrayed by his cursed, ageless body, manipulated by the girl he loved, and now finding out he had been lied to by his closest friends. No, it wasn’t just that they had lied to him - they had completely excluded him. He’d become an outsider in his own family, left out of the loop and treated like a dumb animal, good for nothing but heavy lifting. As he lay there looking up at these three people he’d shared his entire life with, he felt more than just betrayal. He felt abandoned.

“Conner -” Nightwing’s tone was a warning. He took one more step and Conner’s body convulsed in agony. He grit his teeth in pain and groaned, nodding once in surrender.

The kryptonite was immediately shielded and Conner gasped for air, vaguely aware of M’gann’s cool fingers on his skin. A full minute passed before his vision cleared and refocused, and Conner tentatively rose on hands and knees with quiet, calculating breaths, as if afraid to make a wrong move. When no nausea came, he lifted his head and saw Nightwing, Wally, and M’gann surrounding him, their faces etched with a mixture of worry, apprehension, and fear. Conner’s eyes locked with Nightwing’s and narrowed into slits.

 _“How could you?”_  His voice was low and menacing, laced with pain. Nightwing felt bile rise in his throat, sick with what he’d just done, and turned his head away. He opened his mouth to speak, but Conner cut him off.

“Take off your mask!” Conner spat, acid in his voice. “The least you can do is look me in the eye while you talk.”

Dick hesitated, and then slowly raised his hand to his mask. His fingers brushed its edge and stopped, as if he had suddenly forgotten the simple act of bending muscle and bone. Then in one fluid motion, he tore it off, crumpling it in his fist. He met Conner’s gaze and tried not to flinch at the face he saw looking back at him. He began to speak in a monotone voice, filled with regret.

“About a year ago now, shortly after Tula’s death, we saw an opportunity to learn more about the Light and their new alliances from the inside. Kaldur had learned his father was Black Manta, and warned me that he was trying to persuade him to switch sides. Kaldur was afraid that if he refused, Manta would begin to attack his friends and teammates, so he came to me and asked for help. That’s when the plan began to take shape: Kaldur would willingly place himself in enemy territory as a double agent, feeding me information as he worked to gain Manta’s trust. It worked for a while, until Manta began to test Kaldur’s loyalties. And… that’s where Artemis came in.” Dick rose from the ground, crossing his arms and feeling his stomach churn. He glanced at Wally, hoping he would jump in and help, but Wally’s eyes were hard and unblinking as he stared straight ahead, refusing to look at any of them. Conner remained on the ground trying to catch his breath, M’gann still beside him, her expression hard to read as she put the pieces together, adding them to her collection of Kaldur’s memories and her own broken psyche.

Dick continued. “Kaldur needed to convince Manta that he had really switched allegiances. He needed to do something drastic, something that couldn’t be taken back – and that’s when we came up with a solution. Artemis’s death would prove Kaldur’s loyalty to his father, and faking her death would give us another inside agent. So we staged everything on the beach, gave Artemis a pill that would temporarily slow her heart and mimic death-like symptoms, and had a enchantment put on her to disguise her face to anyone but Wally, Kaldur, and me. She now poses under the name “Tigress” and has become Kaldur’s right hand under his father’s instruction.”

Dick paced a few feet away and leaned against a nearby table, his fingers rapping against the surface in an agitated, uneven beat. “It was supposed to have been enough…” He muttered, bitterness on his tongue. “How could it not have been enough?” He was talking more to himself now than to Conner and M’gann. “He’d just murdered a former teammate, one of his best friends, in cold blood. It wasn’t supposed to go any further – we didn’t think there was anything more we could’ve done while still keeping the plan intact. How could we have known?”

Nightwing’s fingers stopped their furious dance and gripped the edge of the table, his newly exposed features showing the strain that was usually shielded by the mask, the thin veil that separated the calm and cool demeanor of the Nightwing from the scared Dick Grayson, unsure and dangerously close to an all-too-familiar failure he couldn’t bear to relive. The mask hid it all.

Wally watched the scene before him and felt a slow realization dawn on him. Seeing his best friend so distressed, he realized for the first time just how hard it had been for Dick to handle this situation by himself, and having to rely on the mask to hide his fears from the young adults and teenagers he was responsible for, pretending that nothing was amiss. Wally was still angry over the recent setbacks and Artemis’s involvement in them, but he felt the first faint stirrings of guilt settle in his stomach.

Nightwing ran one hand through his thick black hair, its ends pointing out every which way and only adding to his exhausted but tense appearance. “So, Kaldur had to take it one step farther. Manta still needed more proof.” His pitch raised slightly – not quite frantic, but pleading, almost begging. “You have to understand – it was the only way. They pushed him, and he couldn’t risk blowing his cover. He  _had_ to destroy Mt. Justice. It was necessary –”

“Necessary?!” Superboy finally stood, only capable of baby steps as the kryptonite poisoning stubbornly refused to leave his system. He struggled to keep his balled fists at his sides. “ _Necessary?_  Dick, that was our  _home_.  _My_  home. It’s the only place that’s ever  _been_  home for me. And you just… just threw it away!”

Dick slowly turned from the table’s edge, both sets of blue eyes locked on each other. “It. Wasn’t. My. Fault.” He said tersely.

“Like hell it wasn’t. This whole thing has been orchestrated by you this entire time, you and Kaldur.” Superboy replied. “How could you keep this from us? In case you forgot, M’gann and I were there from the beginning too. Don’t you trust us? Or, what, was it just some private club? Some new team of you and your best pals, one where we weren’t important enough to include?”

Dick raised his voice. “You  _know_  that’s not true.”

“I don’t know WHAT’S true anymore, Dick!” Superboy bellowed. “I don’t know who any of you are anymore! We’re friends – we’ve been together for five years, risking our lives for one another over and over again, because we had each others’ backs. What changed, Dick? What happened that you had to start keeping secrets and forming plans the rest of us weren’t included in and LYING TO OUR FACES ABOUT IT?”

“Do you think I LIKE this?” Nightwing snapped. “I never wanted it to go this far. Everything was supposed to be different. We had a plan. But then-”

“Plan’s CHANGE, Dick! How many times over the years were we on a mission with a plan only for things to go completely crazy and screw everything up?”

“This is different! People were starting to die! You saw it happen – Jason, Tula, Garth; our friends were dying right in front of our eyes. We had to do something-”

“Dick, there is no ‘we’ here! There’s just been you, trying to control things you have no power over and keeping secrets you had no right to hide.”

“I was trying to protect all of you. The fewer people who knew –”

“Dick, don’t you GET IT? You can’t protect all of us! That’s not your job! We’re not your pieces on a chessboard where you get to decide what we do and what we know. Don’t you see how sick that is? If you had just trusted us, we could’ve helped prevent all of this!”

Dick let out a frustrated yell, his fingers tightly wound in his hair. “Conner, you’re not listening to me –”

“NO, DICK. You’re not listening to ME.” Conner grabbed Dick by the shoulders and gripped his armor hard, spidery cracks forming under his fingers. “You said that Kaldur wasn’t on our side anymore – that one of our own, our leader, was out to  _kill_  us if he ever had the chance.” His voice began to break. “You had me believe that Artemis was  _dead_ , Dick. That our friend had been murdered - by  _Kaldur_.”

Nightwing looked at Conner’s shattered face, felt his trembling hands on his shoulders, and was more terrified of this Conner than the one he had been fighting a few minutes ago. He had seen an enraged Superboy many times. He’d never seen a broken one.

Dick put his hands on top of Conner’s, gently prying them away. “We thought… we thought that if too many people knew what we were doing, there was a greater chance someone would slip up. It’s not that we don’t trust you two – we just…” His voice ran off, unsure of what to say, because he couldn’t bear to look Conner in the eye and tell him the truth… that M’gann was far too emotionally attached to her teammates to ever attack them as an undercover agent in disguise - that Conner had all the power, but none of the tactical skills needed to offer anything substantial to their mission.

Conner looked up, tears welling in his eyes, and Dick’s heart sank. He could see that Conner already knew.

“You just didn’t need us.” Conner answered lowly. He stood straight, attempting to smother his rarely shown display of emotion “Except now, because you didn’t let us know what we were walking into on that ship, Aqualad is comatose, and Artemis has no one to protect her from Black Manta.”

All three of them were silent, the truth of Conner’s words sinking in and affecting each of them differently, but filling them all with unparalleled fear. Wally spoke for the first time.

“We’re going to get her back.” He stated firmly.

“How?”

“I’m not sure yet,” Dick crossed his arms pensively. “But give me a day or so, come up with a plan of attack –”

“A plan?” Conner asked incredulously. “After the way your last few plans have turned out?” His voice was cold. “And what makes you think we’ll trust you now?”

“Because I know more about Manta’s ship than anyone else. I know dozens of ways to get in undetected. I know how to disarm his soldiers and how to take out his weapons. I can get Artemis out of there.”

“But what about Kaldur?” Conner replied, his voice rough. “He’s…” He glanced at M’gann, not trusting himself to say more without having another outburst. He was angry at her too, angry for not listening to him from the beginning when he told her she was abusing her powers, angry that she had chosen the power over him, angry that she had used that power to potentially damage Kaldur beyond repair.

He turned to her. “M’gann, you haven’t said anything about this at all. Don’t you… don’t you have anything to say?” He pleaded.

M’gann had been silent this whole time, and now looked utterly lost as she processed all of the information she had lacked mere moments ago. She was kneeling on the floor with her fists tightly balled at her sides. Silent tears streamed down her face as she looked up.

“Twice, I’ve seen my friend die.” She whispered. “ _Twice_. You made me think Kaldur was a murderer. And… and I…” Her throat closed off and she gasped for air. “I could’ve taken her place. I could’ve been anybody down there, and no one would’ve known.” She looked at Nightwing, pain in her eyes of an entirely different kind – the kind that came from regret. “Why didn’t you pick  _me_  instead?”

Nightwing couldn’t speak. His mouth opened and closed, but words didn’t come to him. M’gann waited for an answer, and when she realized she was not going to get one, she hung her head and hid her face behind her choppy red hair, unable to look at him.

Conner clenched his eyes shut and imagined that this wasn’t real – that he was in a bad dream and the last few months never happened. He willed himself to be back in the cave, receiving a new mission from Batman and preparing for departure with his teammates, his best friends, holding M’gann’s hand as Wally scarfed down a candy bar before it was time to go. Those days felt so far away now – like a wisp of smoke rapidly dissipating before his eyes, unable to grasp it in his hand and keep it close to his heart – so desperately in need of something good, something to convince him that not everything in his life had fallen to pieces – if there was even anything left at all that hadn’t already been tainted.

Nightwing was talking, but his voice was muffled in Conner’s head, no longer really listening.

 “I can fix this, Conner. I swear, we’ll get Artemis back.” His voice was desperate. “M’gann can fix Kaldur –”

M’gann sobbed quietly, putting her head in her hands. She mumbled something unintelligible, but Conner knew what she couldn’t find the strength to say – that she didn’t know how to undo the damage she’d already done.

“ – call in Zatanna… - team up with M’gann… - camouflage can shield them…”

Wally had begun to argue now. “ – expect to get them both out, do you? – massacred if we get caught –”

Conner suddenly realized Nightwing had asked him something. Both he and Wally were staring at him expectantly, but what they wanted him to say he did not know. Conner gazed at them in silence, feeling as if he weren’t even there at all. He turned to leave, needing to be somewhere, anywhere but here, where the air was thick with lies of the present and memories of the past. It suffocated him.

Nightwing called after him. “Conner… please.” He said weakly.

Conner stopped, turning back to face him. He saw a thirteen year old boy again, terrified of making a mistake he couldn’t take back, looking to a familiar face for reassurance. But the damage had been done, and the face Conner saw was not the boy he’d known. None of them were who they used to be, these four friends who had spent the last five years of their lives together, working as a team, growing so closely knitted in each others’ lives that it was impossible to picture life without any one of them in it. It wasn’t until this moment that they could truly see just how different things were now, and how uncertain the future was as it loomed over them like thunderclouds, no longer bright and shining in youthful eyes. Nor would it ever be so again.

Conner felt a heaviness in his heart, silence hanging in the air around them. “You have no idea what your secrets have done to us.”

He turned away, walked out the door, and did not look back.


End file.
